


Transfiguration

by lordleycester



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 07:25:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17483765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordleycester/pseuds/lordleycester
Summary: AU. What would happen if Harry Potter was sorted into Slytherin?





	Transfiguration

“Potter, Harry!”

It’ll be Gryffindor, he thinks to himself as the boy walks up the Great Hall. Such an uncanny resemblance is unlikely to be in looks alone. His eyes notwithstanding. James Potter reborn, come to swagger about the halls of Hogwarts, with Lily’s eyes looking at him in accusation - what punishment could be more apt for him.

He drains his goblet in a long gulp. Quirrell glances at him in alarm, but thinks better of saying anything. Good, he thinks. Not as much of a fool as he thought. 

The boy sits down on the stool, McGonagall poised to place the Hat on his head. The goblet in his hand fills up again. This is the only reason he bothers coming to these things anymore. He feels the headmaster’s eyes boring into him. 

“Slytherin!”

Severus Snape looks up from his goblet.

 

***

 

He strides into the headmaster’s office, his robes billowing about him. He does not waste time on preambles.

“Why was the boy sorted into Slytherin?” he demands.

“Whatever boy are you talking about, Severus?” The older man doesn't even look up.

He rolls his eyes impatiently. “You know very well which boy I’m talking about, Headmaster.”

Dumbledore puts down the paper he was reading and peers at the younger man from behind his half-moon spectacles.

“Yes, that was disingenuous of me.” He sighs. “I imagine Harry was sorted into Slytherin because that was where the Hat thought he would do best.” He sweeps his hand to the chair in front of him.

Snape sits down heavily. “Lily was sorted into Gryffindor.” A beat. Her name hangs in the air like a ghost. He clears his throat. “So was Potter. All the Potters were Gryffindors.” He feels the fact that he has obsessively checked school records on the matter best remains unspoken.

“Indeed they were.” Dumbledore’s eyes twinkle as if he knew anyway. “It’s rare for children to be sorted into different houses than their families, but it’s not unheard of. Sirius Black comes to mind.”

Dark eyes flash dangerously. “Sirius Black,” he enunciates carefully, unused to the way the words feel in his mouth. He fights the urge to spit. “Did you think I had forgotten about him?” 

“I apologize, Severus. It was glib of me to mention him like that.” He rummages around his desk and offered a sherbet lemon as a conciliatory gesture. “I would have thought that you’d be glad to have Harry in Slytherin house.” 

“Glad?” He waves the candies away.

Dumbledore shrugs his shoulders by way of reply.

“What would you have me do with the boy?”

“The same thing you do with any first-year who is sorted into your house.”

Snape rises from his chair and walks toward a cabinet. “He looks like his father.”

“As sons often do.” He studies Snape’s face carefully. “Surely you will not hold that against him?”

Snape looks away. “I can make no promises.”

Dumbledore stands and pours two glasses of firewhiskey. 

“Hagrid says that the boy is bright, unassuming, and eager to learn.” He hands a glass to Snape.

Snape downs the whiskey in one gulp. He grimaces. “Hagrid named a giant three-headed dog Fluffy.”

Dumbledore snorts in amusement. “Did he? I didn’t know that.”

“He told me over dessert.” 

Dumbledore takes a sip and put the glass down. “You are determined to think the worst of the boy.” 

Dark eyes meet blue ones. “Perhaps I am. And why not? I’ve found that it’s the best way to avoid disappointment.” The words sound more bitter than he meant them to be.

Dumbledore holds his gaze for a while before Snape finally looks away. “I hope you give him a chance to prove you wrong, Severus.”

 

***

 

He finds himself walking to Hagrid’s hut. He’s not sure why and to what end. He is about to turn back when Hagrid opens the door.

“Come on in! I just put on the kettle.”

He sits at the table while Hagrid pours the tea into two large mugs and sets one in front of him. 

Finally, he blurts out: “You gave the boy his letter.”

“Tha’ I did.” Hagrid seems to have been expecting this.

“What did you think of him?”

“He’s a nice lad. Yeh’d like ‘im. A bit shy, but tha’s ter be expected after living with that aunt and uncle of ‘is. Yeh wouldn’t believe how big Muggles they are!”

“I think I have an idea. Tuney Evans was always suspicious of magic. Jealous because she didn’t get into Hogwarts.” It feels odd, he thinks, talking about this, after all this time. He’s not sure why he volunteered this little tidbit.

Hagrid raises his eyebrows and starts to say something. He thinks better of it. “Righ’. I forgot you knew ‘er. Tha' explains a lot, I suppose. Did yeh ever meet tha' great brute Dursley?” 

Snape stares into his mug. “Saw him once. Didn’t seem very pleasant.”

Hagrid snorts into his tea. “The years haven’t changed ‘im."

“Did you expect the boy to be sorted into Slytherin?”

“Ter be honest, no I didn’t. Mighta let slip somethin’ about all Death Eaters bein’ Slytherins.”

Snape can barely muster a response. For the umpteenth time in the last quarter hour, he wonders why he’s even here. He feels detached, apprehensive; like he’s about to witness a train crash and can’t bring himself to look away.

“So,” Hagrid says while fiddling around with the tea kettle, “the question yeh want to ask me, but won’t, is: Is Harry more like James or more like Lily?”

Was it that obvious? He tries an evasion. “What makes you think that?”

“Is tha' the best yeh can do, lad?” Hagrid smirks. “I mean, professor.”

He merely sips at his tea. Too hot and too sweet. Hagrid looks at him with a sympathetic expression. It is infuriating.

“Well, like I said, he’s a shy lad. Yeh’d never accuse James o' bein' shy.”

“That’s before he knew he was a celebrity. Give him time and I’m sure he’ll come round.” He can feel his mouth turning into a sneer.

“Doubt tha’. Not the type.”

“He’s the spitting image of James Potter.” He doesn’t know why he’s doing this; this incessant picking at scabs. 

“‘Cept for the eyes. Lily’s eyes through an' through. They say the eyes are the windows ter the soul.” He feels something simmering in a part of him that he thought had long been locked away. It is an uncomfortable feeling. 

“Stop talking about his bloody eyes, would you?” He slams his mug onto the table, sloshing hot tea all over the place. “Evanesco,” he mutters. He has the decency to look embarrassed. It was not much of a train crash, he thinks, more of a pranging. He makes some apologetic noises and moves to leave. 

But Hagrid puts his hand on Snape’s shoulder and pushes him back down to his chair. The gamekeeper looks earnest and Snape braces for impact.

“The thing yeh need ter understand is James was a good man.” He holds up a large hairy hand before Snape could interrupt. “He was a git o’ a boy, I won’t deny it. He was terrible to yeh; he was arrogant, he thought the world was his by rights. But he grew out of it. He realized he made mistakes. If he had met yeh again, he would’ve apologized.”

He closes his eyes and pictures himself slamming into the wall. It is almost satisfying. He opens his eyes and looks out the window. “Then it’s a shame I killed him before he had the chance to, eh?” His voice is monotonous. 

“Yeh stop tha'. Yeh stop tha' right now. We both know yeh didn’t kill him.” He forces Snape to turn and look at him. “Or her.”

Snape stands and walks toward the door. “Good night, Hagrid,” he murmurs, “Thanks for the tea.”

 

***

 

He could not sleep.

He watched Les Miz on the West End once - Charity Burbage had pestered him into bringing her to a “muggle show”. (Of course he had to pick the tragic one - she would have probably preferred 'Cats.') When the dying Valjean sang out “To love another person is to see the face of God!”, Charity blubbered - but he wondered if it were true. After all, he is quite certain that he had loved his mother - loved her still, even - but he could not recall any experience of divinity.

Not that he hadn't gone looking for it. But his readings of the Bible only served to frustrate and perplex him. Take, for instance, the shortest verse in the King James Version, John 11 verse 35 : “Jesus wept.” Why had Jesus felt the need to weep? Lazarus was dead, but being omnipotent, Jesus was more than capable of bringing him back to life. In fact, being omniscient, Jesus knew that Lazarus would be brought back to life. What was there to cry about?

When Severus Snape wept, it was for things that could not be undone. 

He wasn’t prone to wandering the school halls. He usually paced the Potions classroom instead, checking and rechecking inventory levels. But he had overheard something, a snippet of a conversation between McGonagall and Flitwick about a mythical artifact that he had always been fascinated with. 

“Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.”

Not much of a puzzle, he thinks, a little disappointed. Desire? He doesn’t have any desires any more. At least, none that warrant the name. Heart? If he ever had one, it has long fallen into disuse, as many, no doubt, would attest to. He imagines it in a chest, growing hairy, like in the children’s story. He steps forward and raises the lamp in his hand.

When he looks into the mirror he sees Lily.

 

***

 

He has often wondered what he might see in the mirror.

His first thoughts were of vengeance. He, Severus, spitting on the corpse of the Dark Lord? Watching a Dementor administer its kiss to Sirius Black? Or perhaps himself, lying in a pool of blood, slowly exsanguinating?

But then he thinks, whatever inclinations he has for revenge lack the ardor that all the books about the mirror seem to speak of. “The deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts.” That’s what the books had said. Deep? Desperate? These were not words that he would use to describe his life these days. Bare. Bleak. Hollow. Words that seem much more apropos. He pictures a mirror reflecting nothing, a Snape-less room, as if he were a vampire. (He already looks the part.)

After he left Hagrid’s hut that day, he decided that he was being altogether too charitable with himself. He remembers the hill, the wind howling, himself kneeling in the cold, Dumbledore’s voice dripping with contempt: “You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?” And he thinks that’s what he would see, him and Lily together, the Dark Lord officiating their wedding, right there in Godric’s Hollow, in front of Potter’s limp body. 

He does not like the version of himself he saw in Dumbledore’s eyes that night. He does not like any versions of himself, really, but this one he hates most of all. Because he fears it is the one that most resembles reality.

But this is not what he sees now, in the Mirror of Erised. He sees Lily; Lily alone. No trace of Snape the Avenger, or Snape the Vampire, or, indeed, Snape the Contemptible Bridegroom. There was only Lily; Lily as he last saw her, in Diagon Alley, not long after her wedding. She had invited him - he still has the invitation; in a box he never opens - but he didn’t have the nerve to go. She was browsing books at Flourish & Blotts; he was on the street trying to make himself inconspicuous. She was wearing a green jumper and faded jeans, her hair tied up in a slapdash ponytail. He wanted and didn’t want her to turn around and see him. She looked out the window and their eyes met for a second before he hurriedly turned the corner.

She looks at him now, just as she did then. Her eyes hold no accusation, but neither are they filled with longing. The edges of her lips are tugged upwards, not quite a smile. A wedding ring glints on her left hand.

This is it; the deepest, most desperate desire of his heart. Not murder or torture or lust. Just Lily, restored to the living. A simple undoing.

Severus Snape weeps. 

 

***

He hears familiar footsteps behind him. He sniffs and wipes his eyes briskly with his sleeve.

"I thought that I might find you here, Severus."

He does not bother turning around.

"And why did you think to find me at all, Headmaster?" He can already guess the answer.

"Hagrid told me that you seemed troubled. I was concerned."

He stares into Lily's eyes and sees his reflection. He looks different in the green light, a bit more stalwart, a little less pathetic.

Slowly, he steps back from the mirror, until the only reflection that could be seen was himself, in the dim moonlight. Snape watches Dumbledore slowly come up behind him. The older man raises a hand and motions to touch Snape's shoulder - but he thinks better of it. The sharp blue eyes look somewhat wistful as they gaze into the mirror.

"You must pardon me," Dumbledore says, "but I must ask, what is it that you see in Erised?"

When Saul of Tarsus rode towards Damascus with torture and pursuit in his mind, the heavens opened and a light blinded him. He was brought to his knees and he became a new man.

How could he explain this to Dumbledore? Cold and calculating Dumbledore, who asked "And what will you give me in return?", would he understand Damascus?

When he turns and faces the old man, his eyes are clear.

"Transfiguration," he says.

Dumbledore holds his gaze and this time Snape does not look away.

"Minerva always said you had an aptitude for it."

 

***

 

He oversleeps and is late for his annual address to the first-years. He splashes some water on his face and dashes to the Slytherin common room. Terrence Higgs had taken the liberty of giving his speech for him.

“We’ve won the House Cup six years in a row and you lot better not do anything to break the streak– Oh, sorry Professor, I didn’t see you there.”

Snape waves his hand, motioning for the boy to carry on. He does so with aplomb, waxing poetic about how the proud heritage of Slytherin House and how Salazar was the greatest of the Hogwarts founders. Snape can’t suppress a little smirk.

He sees Lily’s son huddled in a corner, looking lost. When the first-years are dismissed, Snape calls out, “Potter!” The name feels odd on his lips.

The boy stops and looks around the common room, as if it there might be some other heretofore unseen Potter that Snape could be calling. It is oddly endearing. James would never have been so humble as to hesitate for even a moment. Snape almost smiles. Almost.

Finally, the boy walks up to him, looking a little terrified. “Ah, Harry Potter,” Snape drawls, “our new celebrity.”

“Yes, s-sir?” Green eyes find the black.

END


End file.
